Here's Why Emma Was Shouted Out As An NYC Star Student

NEW YORK CITY — Star Students are found in classrooms, on concert and theater stages and at debate lecterns, and out in the community doing good things to make life better for all of us.

Here at Patch, we've launched an initiative to help recognize Star Students, and we’re working to tell the stories of these outstanding kids to their neighbors.

This submission comes from Rachel who nominated Emma of New York, New York.

Star local student’s name

Emma

What grade is your star local student in?

11th

How do you know the star local student?

She’s my daughter.

Why do you believe the star local student should be recognized?

It takes a special type of person to face their own extremely challenging circumstance and decide to use it to help others. Emma was 11 years old when her father was diagnosed with glioblastoma, terminal brain cancer. This inspired her to help others in a similar situation. Despite her young age, Emma committed herself to helping families facing cancer. She formed Club Care, a charity organization and enrolled in a junior therapy training program to get the skills needed to help families even as an adolescent. She partnered with a friend who also lost a parent to cancer and their initial projects included creating care packages for pediatric oncology patients at a local hospital and hand delivering staff appreciation gifts for the oncology team. During the pandemic, their ongoing live volunteer efforts came to an abrupt stop and Emma had to innovate to fulfill their mission. For example, she spearheaded a room makeover for a pediatric cancer patient completely virtually. Upon entering high school, Emma realized the work she and her partner were doing could be expanded and she recruited a classmate to start a Club Care chapter at her school. They have over 30 members and meet weekly to do projects for the brain cancer community. Emma creates detailed lesson plans including PowerPoint presentations for each meeting and leads the meetings. Every school night, she works on spreadsheets, keeps detailed accounting ledgers, has FaceTime calls with committee members and more.

The passion that Emma brings to her work is astounding for a 16 year old. After personally experiencing the effects that a brain cancer diagnosis can have on a family unit, Emma realized that she ultimately would like to be a child therapist and work with kids experiencing something similar. She is constantly brainstorming about ideas for how to expand Club Care and has goals to create chapters throughout the country. She is currently working on a manual for other students who might want to start their own chapters and has spoken with friends already at four different schools about starting their own club care chapters. She works tirelessly towards her goals. Emma is an A student and does all of this work on top of completing her own rigorous schoolwork. She is constantly troubleshooting issues that arise. As mentioned above, despite the pandemic, she and her team figured out how to impact families in a meaningful way through projects such as the room makeover, Christmas sponsorship, etc. She has learned to navigate the bureaucracy of a New York City public high school and has found creative solutions to meeting space, teacher/advisor involvement and other issues that have arisen. Her high school offers a multitude of after school clubs yet Club Care is constantly growing membership because of the ongoing, engaging activities that they offer as well as the fact that they provide snacks at every meeting!

Emma's father passed away during the pandemic. It was an extremely hard time for her personally and she felt the collective stress of her surrounding community. Instead of wallowing in her grief, she was inspired to take action. The tragedy of losing her father gave Emma’s life purpose and meaning. She has chosen to dedicate her energy, passion and time to helping others cope with a devastating brain cancer diagnosis and infuse joy into their lives despite this huge challenge. Her goal is to positively impact the pediatric brain cancer community both through work with individual families as well as the community at large. A recent project involved connecting with a single mom of two adolescent daughters, one with brain cancer. Emma and her team arranged for complete makeovers of all three ladies. They received professional haircuts and styles, fall make up applications, brand new wardrobes, and suitcases full of beauty products for each recipient. Emma and the other volunteers spent hours interacting with the girls and their mom and watched how these simple beauty treatments did more than just change their appearance. They blossomed and smiled and laughed for hours and left feeling magical. Emma and Club Care gave this family a priceless gift which they will never forget. But more importantly, Emma realized that despite her young age, she has the power to make a big difference and bring about positive change for others in the aftermath of her own devastating loss.

What's one thing you want everyone to know about the star local student?

Below is a selection of unsolicited quotes shared by community partners, project recipients and other families impacted by Emma’s work through Club Care:

Scarlett - Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for my family and I. Everyone absolutely loved the treats they were delicious. I’m so very grateful for not only the treats but the gift card as well. For you it might not seem much but for us it was a like a gift from god. So again thank you so much.

Dan - Thank you so much for everything you are doing to help other families. It is a true blessing. And It is almost overwhelming to read of the sincere love and generosity you showed to them. We are so grateful that you are involved with Making Headway.

Denise - You were amazing yesterday and worked so hard in advance so that the event surpassed all expectations!! 👏👏👏👏

Renata - Your daughter is something else, you must be so proud of her.

Amy Holiber - your daughter is quite amazing. What she is doing is so wonderful.

Gianna Liberatore - what your daughter has done at a young age is truly amazing. And This is amazing, what your daughter does is incredible!

Mary Alice - We are so honored to support your efforts and happy to empower your giving with GLAM4GOOD in any way we can. Personally, I am so proud of Emma and you Mom, for doing so much good for people especially when you both have gone through so much too!

And

Please tell the girls how blown away we are by their commitment to service and doing good for others We call you #earthangels and we are happy to welcome you into the GLAM4GOOD family and support your tremendous efforts with GLAM4GOOD!! I know how challenging it is to start a foundation 😉 I have always wished philanthropy & doing good could be easier than it actually is! I commend Emma and her team for having the passion/courage/tenacity/work ethic/joyfulness and heart to start a foundation and hold event to give back to others.

Robin - It really gives you hope for the future when you see such wonderful kids like these…Thank you.

Chris Mott - The commitment that she has to help families in this way is stunning. It is truly wonderful what she values and what she has decided to put her efforts into.

Karla- Thank you very much We are feeling sooooo happy

Congratulations on your achievements, and all of our best wishes to you in the future, Emma!

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